A small Montague Dawson oil on panel of ships being careened, dated 1960

A small Montague Dawson oil on panel of ships being careened, dated 1960, in a grisaille palette, showing two three masted ships being careened, the one in the foreground with a tender steadying the bow and two further ship’s boats with men cleaning the exposed hull, signed Montague Dawson, in a gilt frame with the original Frost and Reed paper label on the reverse inscribed ‘Gone Aground, Nov. 16. 1960, 3 7/8’  x 6 ¼’.  English.

Montague Dawson RMSA, FRSA (1890–1973) was the son of a keen yachtsman and the grandson of the marine painter Henry Dawson (1811–1878).  He served in the Dazzle Painting Section at Leith in WWI and 1924 was the official artist for an Expedition to the South Seas by the steam yacht St.George.  He was present at the final surrender of the German High Seas Fleet and many of his illustrations depicting the event were published in The Sphere.  After the war, Dawson established himself as a professional marine artist, concentrating on historical subjects and portraits of deep-water sailing ships often in a stiff breeze or on high seas.  During WWII he was once again employed as a war artist and again worked for The Sphere.  He exhibited regularly at the Royal Society of Marine Artists, of which he was a member, from 1946 to 1964, and occasionally at the Royal Academy between 1917 and 1936.  He was considered one of the greatest living marine artists, whose patrons included two American Presidents, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson, as well as the British Royal Family.  Studies in black, white and grey or ‘grisaille’ were most probably prepared for publication in the Sphere and other newspapers or magazines.